


In Your Eyes

by AndyAO3



Series: somewhere (there's a place for us) [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Feels, First Time, Fluff and Smut, I blame Jack okay, Love Confessions, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mutual Masturbation, Pre-Canon, SEP era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-28
Updated: 2017-01-28
Packaged: 2018-09-20 08:52:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9483677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndyAO3/pseuds/AndyAO3
Summary: Self-confidence is not one of Jack's strong points.





	

**Author's Note:**

> tWO UPLOADS IN ONE DAY WHAT. have more tunes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2NwVA3eQow 
> 
> yeah I've been sitting on these for a while. this in contrast with the other upload really shows how far these two have both come. there's a lot of differences between younger jack and older jack in particular, but the underlying neuroses are still there. while gabriel's still coming to terms with someone HE cares about being exposed to HIS neuroses on the regular, and is less afraid of getting hurt and more afraid of being the one to hurt someone else. 
> 
> i have a lot of feelings about these two okay

Jack was in love.

 _Don't make me spell it out_ , Gabriel had whispered to him-- full of poignancy, overflowing with emotion. And Jack didn't have to disobey, because he could see it. Warm brown eyes shining, staring, drinking him in. Big strong hands holding his, a faint tremble in them. Kisses dusted across his knuckles, soft and restrained. Sitting there in that hospital bed, he knew that Gabriel cared. It'd been spelled out in every action and every word.

They got back to base, they were reprimanded, they were given back their quarters after a check-up and a round of fresh injections. Jack thought of Gabriel as he lay in his cot, controlling his breathing and trying not to be sick from the medications they'd pumped into him that seared his veins. He thought of Gabriel and his hands, and his eyes, and the rasp of his beard over the skin of the back of Jack's hand. And he wondered, as he drifted off, if he'd ever be as good at showing things as Gabriel was. If someone like him could find a thousand subtle ways to write out affection without saying a word.

He was still a little nauseous the next day, heading into the mess. Gabriel looked no better, but he caught Jack's hand in his own under the table and offered a faint smile and it was amazing how much such a small thing _helped_. Then they went through training as normal, checkups, standard PT regimens. Lunch and dinner and the rest of the day passed without incident, and if anyone noticed how Gabriel's eyes lingered only for him to jerk his gaze away whenever Jack looked up, they weren't saying anything.

Meanwhile, Jack was wondering if he should say something himself. Because in the weeks it'd taken him to recover, he hadn't. Nor had he said anything on the way back to base, or when they got there. And he wasn't as good at showing as Gabriel was so he hadn't done much of that either, simply letting Gabriel do as he pleased while offering neither complaint nor encouragement.

This was why he ended up outside of Gabriel's door at the end of the day, hand hovering over it as he debated whether to knock. Said internal debate lasted for several minutes.

He knocked. There was a shuffle inside, and the door opened to reveal brown eyes, dark skin, powerful muscle. Clad in sweatpants and a sleeveless shirt, Gabriel was still as beautiful as he'd be in a three piece suit; Jack was speechless, like he so often was when he was face-to-face with the other soldier.

When Gabriel smirked, Jack knew he was done for. "Just gonna stand there, sunshine?"

"I, uh..." Jack swallowed, shifting his weight and fidgeting. His leg was still stiff and gave a twinge at the motion. _I love you_ , his mind all-too-helpfully supplied, but that was proably the wrong thing to say. He glanced behind him, checking for anyone else who might be watching, but there was no one there at that hour. "Can-- can I come in?"

Gabriel shrugged, stepping aside, gesturing for Jack to come in. There was a sense of finality to it, Jack thought, when the door closed behind him. He'd gotten this far. He was in Gabe's room. His eyes darted around nervously, looking at anything that wasn't his partner-- clothes in two mostly-seperate piles, pictures taped to the wall, a guitar case in the corner, tablet on the bedside table, bed unmade like Gabe had just been laying in it.

He tried to put the image of Gabe lounging in bed out of his mind, squeezed his eyes shut when that thought led to the memory of the other soldier pressed up against his side in the hospital bed, close enough to feel Gabe's breath, to smell him. It didn't help that the smell surrounded Jack now, sweat and gunpowder and aftershave. Didn't help one damn bit.

"Hello, Earth to Morrison?" Fingers snapped by Jack's ear, startling him. Gabriel was grinning, amused. "Damn, you're jumpy."

"I, yeah. I guess. Sorry." Jack made an aborted gesture towards the bed. "Is it alright if I sit down?"

"Sure." It didn't help that when Jack sat down, Gabriel joined him; Jack was all too aware of how few inches there were between them, how small the bed was. "What's up?"

Jack's brain made a godawful innuendo that was so bad it took him a few seconds of blank staring at a wall to form proper words (because _my dick_ was definitely not the appropriate response). "I wanted to, uh, to talk."

Gabriel's brows lifted, and he took one of Jack's hands to kiss it, like before. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." Jack's gaze flitted around the room, glancing at everything else before finally coming to rest on Gabriel. Who was looking at him with soft eyes and a faint smirk as a thumb brushed over his knuckles, feather-light. "I, you're. You're really... Not making this easy."

The smirk widened. "I could stop."

"Didn't say you had to stop."

Gabriel paused, straightened. The amusement faded somewhat. "Jack."

No, that was wrong. Why was he stopping? Why was he looking at Jack like that, had he done something wrong? "I-- you didn't have to stop," Jack repeated, quieter.

He didn't like how Gabriel was looking at him like he was fragile, holding him like he was made of glass. "We don't have to do this if it's not what you want," Gabriel said.

It sounded so stupid to Jack. Not what he wanted? He'd wanted it for ages. He'd wanted it so badly for so long he'd forgotten what it was like to _not_ be holding back on it in every waking moment. He'd been so sure that it was obvious in a thousand tiny ways, self-conscious of every action, every glance, but... Had that left him so bad at showing it that he'd given no indications of how he felt at all?

God. It just might've. Because the more he hesitated, the more Gabriel seemed to slip away, falling back into himself and his own thoughts. Jack could see the hurt there, the longing.

He swallowed nervously, knowing he had to speak. Something. Anything. "Gabe," he mumbled; he felt more than saw when Gabriel's eyes shot up to stare at him.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Gabriel rake his teeth over his lower lip in thought. "Why're you here, Jack?"

Because. _Because_. "I wanted to-- to show you."

"Show me what?"

"That I--fuck. It's stupid."

Gabriel laughed, low enough to give Jack shivers. "Doubtful, if it's got you this worked up." He let go of Jack's hand in favor of stroking rough knuckles over the back of his face; Jack leaned into the touch, brought his hand back to tangle it in Gabriel's and hold him there.

"You're so good at this," Jack told him. "I wanted to show you, not tell you. You're so good at showing. You're so-- you don't have to spell things out, or embarrass yourself babbling about it."

"I think it's cute when you babble," Gabriel admitted with a shrug.

"But you don't babble at all. You just--" Jack made an irritated noise and pressed his face into Gabriel's hand. "I'm sorry. It's stupid, like I said. For the record, just-- don't worry about me, okay?"

"Always gonna worry about you, Jack."

"Don't worry about me _wanting_ it, I mean. I-- I've always... I want this. Anything, everything you'll give me."

Gabriel smirked. "Anything?"

"Anything." Jack ducked his head to try and hide his face, feeling it heat up under all that scrutiny; he felt the bed shift, Gabriel moving closer, but didn't realize what the other man was doing until soft, warm lips had found his.

Awkward, clumsy, surprising-- or maybe that was just him, being so unused to it. Jack parted his lips to say something, to breathe, and Gabriel surged forward to take advantage. His lips were chapped, his goatee was scratchy, it was jarring when their teeth knocked together, and Jack was pretty sure he'd never been kissed so demandingly and thoroughly in his life. He made a noise into it, muffled and desperate; one of his hands flew up so he could dig his fingers into the back of Gabriel's neck, holding onto him like a lifeline.

Jack was still holding on when Gabriel pulled back with a faint scrape of teeth over his bottom lip, feeling lightheaded and a little dizzy. He felt more than heard Gabriel's soft chuckle, a calloused thumb brushing over his cheek.

"Breathe, Jackie," Gabriel teased; Jack huffed in annoyance, but he was smiling in spite of it.

"Feels like you're going easy on me," he mumbled in response. "You don't have to."

Gabriel shrugged it off. "Yeah, well. Maybe I want to." Licked his lips, glanced to the side as if embarrassed. Even though they were so close Jack could feel his breath, even though the taste of him lingered on Jack's lips and tongue, he was still shy about using words over actions. "Maybe I don't wanna rush you too much."

"I'd let you," Jack said.

"You shouldn't." The way Gabriel looked at him made him feel like something precious. "I could fuck you up pretty badly, Jack."

"I can take it."

"No one should have to take it."

"I trust you." Jack wasn't even sure what Gabriel was talking about anymore. It could be a lot of things, or nothing at all. It could be this relationship they had as a whole, or it could be limited to this single moment in Gabriel's room. Either way, he was sure of his answer.

Sighing, Gabriel leaned forward so that their foreheads touched, closing his eyes. He pressed another kiss to Jack's lips; more chaste, but no less fond. "If it's too much, just-- tell me?"

Jack snickered. He should've probably found it insulting that Gabriel was being so cautious, but it was hard to remember how much of an affront to his masculinity it was supposed to be when it was just so damn adorable. "Will do, sir," he said.

Gabriel just snorted and shook his head as he parted from Jack to push him back onto the bed, pulling a laugh out of him.

\---

Well, it wasn't going too badly so far. Or so Gabriel assured him. He was pretty sure that coming in his pants within about five minutes like some kind of teenager just because Gabriel had been grinding against him was as terrible as it got, but Gabriel had just laughed and kissed away Jack's stammered apologies and said he'd take it as a compliment, and then they'd peeled off both their clothes and Gabriel was fucking gorgeous and Jack knew it wouldn't take much for him to get hard again.

The SEP had buffed them all up, Jack knew that. But Gabriel, he'd come out of it stocky and powerful in a way that made Jack's mouth water, that had him reaching out to touch before he realized it as all that glorious dark skin was revealed-- reverent, almost, as he let his hands and eyes wander.

Gabriel chuckled, a low sound so close to his lips that he could feel the other soldier's breath on his face. "Like what you see, Jackie?"

"Fuck yes," Jack breathed. He shivered when Gabriel's pants were yanked off and met his shirt on the floor, allowing his cock to bounce free and brush against Jack's abdomen. He hesitated then, hands twitching, unsure of how far he was allowed to go. "May I--?"

"I won't stop you."

Jack made a helpless noise and took it as permission, wrapping his fingers around Gabriel's dick, revelling in the heated sigh against his neck he managed to earn for it. Gabriel was thicker than he was, hard and hot in his hand. He pressed the pad of his thumb against the slit, toying with it, and bit his lip as fluid beaded at the tip and Gabriel's breath hitched.

A dark, selfish thought occurred to him, one he couldn't silence as quickly as he liked: this was his. This memory, this moment, the way Gabriel looked at him and trusted him and cared about him. He had so much power then, so much control. He could do anything he liked and Gabriel would let him. If he were a better person, he'd fuck it up on purpose. Just so Gabriel would never want someone like him again. But he wasn't a better person, and he'd always been too soft to be able to bear hurting people like that, even if it was for their own good.

He started moving his hand, fingers teasing the foreskin on every stroke; he drank in every breath, every stuttering movement of those hips, committing it all to memory as he worked Gabriel over. His free hand came up and cupped Gabriel's jaw, mapping the shape of it with his fingers, only for him to suppress a shiver when the other soldier took hold of his wrist and turned to kiss his palm with a quiet, desperate urgency.

Jack bit back a curse at the sight and shifted his hips enough so that he could take both of them in his hand, clumsier than before but so much _better_. Gabriel planted his hands in the bedding for leverage with a breathlessly amused huff as he rocked into it, following Jack's lead. The friction of it was almost too much after coming once already, had Jack biting back a whine and arching into it, heels digging into the mattress--

It felt like high praise when Gabriel finally came, gripping the bedding tight as his voice cracked on a shaky groan. Jack forced his eyes open to watch the other soldier's face as Gabriel throbbed and spilled between them, taking in every last detail even as he whimpered and followed Gabriel over the edge; the parted lips, the slight furrow in his brow, the sweep of those long lashes as his eyes fluttered closed. Everything from the tension in his thighs where they bracketed Jack's waist to the sound of his breathing as they both came down.

When Gabriel opened his eyes again, he was smiling. Even as he caught his breath, even sweaty and sticky as he was. "Not bad, sunshine," he mumbled.

"Yeah?" Jack tried not to look too relieved, shifting and stretching to fumble blindly for one of their discarded shirts on the floor. Attempting to act natural as he wiped them both down. "Better than your other conquests?"

"About average. Nothing that can't be worked on." Gabriel rolled to lay on his side and Jack followed after tossing the soiled shirt aside again, turning to face him and hold his gaze. Hard not to get caught up in those eyes and want more of what they offered when they kept looking at Jack like there was something worth seeing there.

As he pulled the covers over them, Jack wanted desperately for that to be true.

He was startled out of his thoughts by Gabriel sucking in a sharp breath, the other soldier averting his eyes as he did. "So, uh," a pause, the smile fading for something more nervous and hesitant, "thanks."

"What for?"

"For everything. For-- for this, I guess." Gabriel ducked his head, frowning to himself. "For staying."

A tight feeling formed in Jack's chest. "I wanted to."

"Yeah, I know. You've told me. S'just-- I know, okay, I know that I'm too much sometimes. And I know how easy it is for things like this to get scary even without that."

"I'm not scared." Not of Gabriel. Never, ever scared of Gabriel.

But that seemed to be the wrong thing to say; Gabriel just frowned harder, withdrew further, until finally he just sighed and rolled over so that all Jack could see was his broad back, his buzzed head, his strong shoulders. "Nevermind. I think too much." Then, "you should probably head back to your bunk before morning. Just saying."

Jack had no idea what to say after that, his traitorous mind supplying only the same thing that had been on repeat since the hospital visit: he _loved_ this man. He loved Gabriel Reyes. And what Gabriel needed was for Jack to say something, do something, _anything_ , because Jack knew what feeling alone and uncared for felt like enough to recognize it in someone else and _God_ if that wasn't the kind of feeling Gabriel was projecting right then--

Slowly, haltingly, he wrapped his arms around Gabriel's waist and pulled the man close against his chest, pressing his face against the other soldier's neck and closing his eyes.

"How can I be scared of someone I'm in love with?" he mumbled.

The effect it had on the other soldier was immediate. He felt Gabriel stiffen in his arms and hastened to press soft kisses to those shoulders, his hands moving to pet and soothe. Gabriel twisted to try and get a look at Jack's face, a deep frown etched into his features. "Jack--"

"It's okay," Jack insisted, "I don't... I'm okay with it, if you don't. I just wanted you to know."

For a long time, Gabriel just stared. Then he let out a long, shaky breath as he rolled back onto his side, easing back into Jack's arms. Jack could feel the way Gabriel's heart hammered in his chest, through the embrace. "God-damn, Jackie," Gabriel whispered finally, "quit being so fucking perfect, will you?"

Jack chuckled, and it was a nervous, giddy sound. "I'm not."

"Close enough for me," Gabriel said.

Coming from him, it was almost believable. Or at least Jack could believe that Gabriel believed it. Part of him felt like a fraud still, but the rest of him... He couldn't remember the last time he'd been so happy. "Love you," he said, kissing Gabriel's neck.

Gabriel let out a shaky laugh like he could barely believe it himself. "Dumbass," he teased; there was enough fondness in it for Jack to hear it like reciprocation, enough affection in his tone to sound like a confession even if it wasn't one.

And that was more than enough for Jack.

 


End file.
